On Friday, Arena started laying off employees.

Staffers at Sports Illustrated were notified on Friday of massive layoffs—some immediately, others in short time, with potential for the entire staff to be gone in three months.

Authentic, the licensing group that purchased Sports Illustrated for $110 million from Meredith five years ago, has terminated the agreement it holds with The Arena Group to publish SI in print and digital, according to an email obtained by Front Office Sports. That move comes three weeks after Arena missed a $3.75 million payment that breached the company's SI licensing deal, which began in 2019. (Authentic's notice of termination, meanwhile, triggered a $45 million fee due immediately to Authentic, according to an SEC filing on Friday.)